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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GPS Info who wrote (185090)	4/13/2006 7:21:20 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

With 20-20 hindsight, we now know that Iraq was actively destroying its stockpiles of chemical weapons before the start of the renewed hostilities, and so the WH made a tactical blunder by using WMD as justification. I'm not sure that it takes 20-20 hindsight. We did know before the war began that Iraq had identified where it was that the destroyed their inventory of weapons [allegedly]. The UN inspectors had confirmed by analysis of the soil that weapons were destroyed at that sight. Iraqi scientists were attempting to quantify in at least gross terms how much was destroyed. While the UN inspectors were understandably skeptical [and should have been] they were attempting to work with the Iraqis to make the assessment. It was at this point in time that the Bush Administration told the UN inspectors to get out of Iraq. So Hawk wants you to prove that 1441 is no more than a wish-list. He’s getting closer, but he hasn’t quite stated that it provides all the justification the US needed. I would like for the discussion to revolve around what was the intent of this resolution. I do think that the UN wanted to rule out invasion as a means of getting Saddam to comply with 1441. He believes that "all available means" includes the authority for military action and it might if that's what the permanent members thought it to mean. He's probably at a disadvantage being limited to US news. I was watching the story from the UK and the news was substantially different in the UK then it was in the US. US news was interested in reporting on the burning issue of french fries vs. freedom fries while in the UK the news media was elaborating on the negotiations. For me, it was fascinating. I was watching Sky News, the BBC and ITV news and they were reporting detailed negotiations. I'd flip over to the US news and they were babbling about freedom fries. With proper calculation, he would have documented every step by the inspectors and allow the world to watch, and also allowed non-US personnel (French?) to inspect their more sensitive areas. If Saddam had the appearance of “full cooperation” with respect to 1441, he might have justifiably cried foul when the US invaded. Testosterone overcame logic. I concern myself with the overly liberal use of the terms ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘hypocrite.’ It seems like unhelpful expectorant to me. There's a lot of hypocrisy in the world. It's hard to overuse the word. But I agree it appears so often that it loses it's impact. jttmab